Q. We recently had a power surge in our surgery that blew the power surge protector and consequently the server and internet was out of service. We were unable to access any patient files for over 24 hours, which caused considerable disruption to our normal service. Could you suggest an appropriate backup plan in such a future eventuality?

A. There are two aspects of this crisis that I would like to comment on: prevention and recovery. Power surges or voltage spikes occur intermittently, sometimes associated with lightning. It is worthwhile having a surge protector to safeguard every computer, monitor and printer in the practice and an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for the server, router and internet box. Surge protectors are relatively inexpensive; you will get a good one for about €30 in a local electrical store. Not all power strips are surge protectors and you get what you pay for. So if you pick one up for €10 it may not give you great protection.

A UPS is a different matter. They work to protect servers against both power surges and power outages. When the power goes out the UPS battery kicks in to allow you time to shut down the server in a controlled way. Otherwise a power outage leads to a server crash and the possibility of corruption of your database and data loss. Uninterruptible power supplies are heavy, expensive and their batteries need replacing every three to five years. They come in different sizes and costs depending on how many appliances you wish to protect. A reasonable UPS will cost about €200-€300. If you have an existing UPS, ask your support company to check that it is working okay. No point in finding out after the event that the UPS battery is spent.

In terms of recovering rapidly from such a crisis, most of the problems after a power surge are likely to be hardware related. Typically, the surge takes out the power supply on the server. This is where an existing relationship with a local IT supplier comes into its own. If there is a local IT shop or company that supplies your hardware and perhaps organises your onsite backup, then they are ideally placed to come to your rescue quickly and fix the hardware problem.

It may mean you pay a bit more for the hardware you need, but to have someone local to call when you are in trouble is really helpful. Look again at the contract with your GP practice software company. Do the response times and escalation procedures reach the standard that you need to run your practice efficiently? A crisis like this should also spur you to look at your data backup process. If the surge had taken out the server hard drive, did you have an up to date backup to restore your patient records?